Duke Puts Away NC State in 2nd Half: Box Score of the Day

CHN now features a live scoreboard, stats, standings, etc.. here. Occasionally, we'll be featuring a box score of the day, with some commentary on why the box score is interesting. It might be involve a huge upset, a big personal effort, some odd statistical occurrences, or other intriguing tidbit.

Box Score of the Day:

Today's pick is.. Duke's come from behind win over NC State.

Duke 73-NC State 56 seem innocuous enough. Duke is after all the #2 team in the country.. and NC State is completely mediocre at this point. So why is this the Box of the Day? For a few reasons:

The big thing to note is the half-time score. NC State 26- Duke 22. Poor, offensively sluggish first halves are becoming a problematic trend for the Blue Devils. It's one thing to be down 4 at the half on the road, it's another for a high-octane team to manage 22 points. Against FSU a couple weeks back, they only managed 19. At Georgia Tech, they at least put up 31, but barely held the lead. What's going to happen when Duke starts slowly against a legitimate ACC foes like Wake or UNC?

Next, look at NC State's turnovers. 19 is simply not going to cut it, and compared to only 8 for Duke, was the main reason the score here separated so quickly.  What's most peculiar about the 19 turnovers is how everyone got into the mix. Most of the time you'll see the feature guards with 4 or so TO's each, but here, 9 different guys managed to lose the ball. At least you can say it was a total team effort to lose.

Finally, note Gerald Henderson's solid 21 point, 7 rebound, 5 steal game. Even though almost all this production came in the 2nd half, it marked another solid overall stat-line for a player that is perhaps finally turning the corner. People have long seen the potential in Henderson's game, but the results have been spotty. Finally, in the last month or so, we've seen him develop a new level of consistency. 10 games in a row now scoring in double-digits. 6 of 8 over 19 points, and finally 2 of 3 over 20 points. It's about time.